Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
At my apartment, I paused in front of Malcolm’s door, then knocked twice. It was late, but he was always up. Sometimes he’d catch me when I came home from late-night stakeouts and we’d have a beer or a whiskey together.
No one answered. Frowning, I knocked again, but the door remained still. He must finally be catching up on his sleep, I decided, heading to my own apartment.
In the shower, I stared into space while I tried to make sense of the day.
There was a lot going on and trying to tease apart all the different threads was impossible.
I thought about Shannon, the possibility she was still in there, haunting the other residents, and then the likelihood Acacia just happened to be in Woolworth’s class.
Did something in the history of magic make her realize something about her own powers?
I had to make time to at least skim the book Woolworth had given me, but I wasn’t sure how because I also had to track down the rest of the twelve students in the seminar.
Groaning, I buried my head in my hands and squeezed my eyes shut, water pounding down on my head. When it cooled, I turned it off, and wrapped my towel around my waist as I went searching for food in the kitchen. I’d just opened a jar of pickles when there was a firm knock at the door.
After peeking through the peephole, I opened the door, raising my eyebrow at the bags of food Nick was carrying.
“Are we expecting more people?” I joked.
His eyes strayed to my stomach and then lower, where the towel wrapped around my hips. Swallowing, he dragged his eyes up to mine and I couldn’t help the wicked grin on my face.
I cocked my hip as I leaned against the door. “Are you planning on coming in?”
He moved forward, crowding me back and pressed his lips to mine, a hungry want sparking between us. I released the door and grabbed his face between my hands. The noise in my head quieted, and I focused on the sensation of his lips pressed to mine, his tongue tracing the seam of my lips.
“Is this okay? Do you want to keep going?” His lips barely moved, the words a whisper against my skin.
“Yes.” If he wanted to ask for consent until we were both blue in the face, at least it would be a pleasurable asphyxia. I let the towel drop.
The bags he was carrying slipped to the floor, and I kicked the door shut before jumping up, wrapping my legs around his waist and, god, it was so sexy to feel his suit pants and belt against my naked skin. It made me feel wanton.
He grabbed my legs, his hands finding my ass, and he squeezed, his muscles supporting me. I could get behind that kind of strength.
“Bedroom.” I moaned, tugging at his head with my hands.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
After an enjoyable hour, when cuddling had overtaken passion, my stomach rumbled, waking both of us from our easy post-coital doze.
“I hope that food was sturdy,” I said.
He grinned and stood, naked. “Come and find out.”
Amused, I grabbed a pair of sweat pants and followed him into the living room where he was digging through a duffel bag. He pulled out his own pair of lounge pants, and I huffed a laugh when I saw an Adidas logo. If the man owned a pair of white tube socks, they were probably name brand, too.
As I watched, he picked up the two large paper bags and put them on my kitchen counter, grabbing plates out of the cabinet. A large, colorful salad came out first and I groaned.
“Is this about my refrigerator?” I asked.
“I’m just saying, you’re about to die of scurvy.
A few more vegetables might prevent you from losing your teeth.
” He distributed it between the plates. He took out some tacos I was excited about until I sniffed and didn’t smell that telltale rich scent of cooked meat.
They must be filled with some vegetarian non-meat.
I squinted suspiciously when he portioned out beans and rice, but they looked normal.
“What’s in the other bag?”
“Be a good boy and you’ll find out.” And hello, that voice. If I wasn’t starving, I would have dragged him back to the bedroom.
I took my plate and fork back to the couch and poked at the salad. He sat down next to me and watched me make faces at the salad for a minute before sighing.
“Are you going to try it?” he asked. “Because I can promise it won’t taste any different if you stab it into wilting.”
“Fine,” I muttered. “But you’d better tell me about the autopsy.”
Eyes narrowed in suspicion, he waited until I took a bite.
“It went about the same as the incubus. We found a trace of the spell under UV light, but it looked like whatever went wrong with the incubus’s spell had been worked out by the time he got to the vampire.
The expert is staying an extra day to examine both bodies and write up her report, but she said the incubus was probably killed about three months ago, and the vampire two. ”
“Who was patrolling the area? Or do most cops think vampires spend all their time face down, not breathing?” I frowned. With a courage I wasn’t sure I had, I stuffed a bite of the salad into my mouth and chewed.
“We rarely patrol looking for vamps,” Nick said. “But it revealed some patrol logs had been altered to make it look like the officers did their rounds.”
“What about the incubus? I mean, the garbage company couldn’t have been ignoring that dumpster for three months, even in Sintown.
” My words came out around another mouthful of salad.
I wasn’t going to tell him, but the salad tasted amazing.
Whatever the dressing was, it made beets and Swiss chard taste not only edible, but like something I’d want to eat a lot of.
I finished it off and grabbed a taco, polishing it off in three bites.
“That one I don’t know. I suspect his pimp was hiding the body or maybe using it…
post mortem.” Nick’s expression went dark, but I was so hungry even his implication that someone used the dead incubus to fulfill the city’s necrophilia needs couldn’t turn my stomach.
“When he found out we were looking for a body, he dumped it so we wouldn’t start searching the actual brothels. ”
Not that they were legally called brothels. No, they were all apartment buildings and gentlemen’s clubs. So what if the apartments had men and women who didn’t live there coming and going at all hours?
“Huh.” I chewed on the next taco. It, too, was delicious. At Nick’s look, I made a face. “Okay, fine, this is fantastic.”
His wide open grin was enough to take the sting off of my capitulation. I ate the beans and rice while he tucked into his own meal, covering his mouth to ask, “And your lead?”
“I talked to a source.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to explain about Laurel.
“And she said there was a professor at the college who’d know about the kind of magic we were looking for.
So I went, but the professor died earlier this spring.
I talked to her son, Mark Woolworth, he’s teaching her course.
A course involving a lot of reading and research about symbols that look like what we saw on the incubus. ”
Nick nodded as he ate and glanced up when I paused. He didn’t look like he recognized Woolworth’s name, but the photo of them together had been taken years ago. Now, how to explain to my by-the-book maybe-boyfriend I’d broken into Woolworth’s office?
“I had to wait until tonight to get a class list because he didn’t want to give it to me in front of anyone who might see.” He didn’t want to give it to me at all, but all I was doing was implying Woolworth had given me the list, not outright saying it.
“And?”
“I got the names, and one of them jumped out at me. You know that girl the Summer Queen wants me to find?”
Nick nodded and raised his eyebrows. “She’s in the class?”
“Yep,” I said. “So, maybe it’s related or maybe not. But she’s missing, too.”
Twisting his lips, Nick made a soft, thoughtful sound. “You know, I asked about her today.”
“How’d you know who to ask about?” I said, sharply.
“There was a picture on your desk,” he said. “I told you I would. I didn’t want to let you down. What’s the point of having a cop boyfriend if you can’t use him for info?”
My brain went blank for a minute, a deer with a wolf in its sight. “Boyfriend?”
“I mean, if you want,” he said. “I didn’t want to—I mean, I want, but you’re really independent so I wasn’t sure—”
“It’s fine. Boyfriend is fine.”
“Anyway.” I recognized the slight glow as a blush.
He stirred his rice into his beans and took a bite.
“I asked around and her job submitted a missing persons report today. The sergeant who took the report said one of the managers sounded like he had a crush on her. He had way too much information about her. Like, he knew what her hair smelled like and exactly what she was wearing the last time he saw her.”
“Where did she work?” I asked.
“A hotel on the waterfront. I can get the exact name if it’s important.”
I shrugged, unsure what would be important at this point. Nick stood, taking both of our empty plates back to the kitchen and opening the second bag. Even if it was more of the veggie-heavy food from the first bag, I’d happily eat it.
“So, we have a missing hotel clerk,” I said. “And a class list of suspects. Oh! And Acacia was filing a civil rights complaint against some Humans Are Human member in her class.”
Nick huffed. “Humans Are Human. Could they have chosen a dumber name? It’s like saying Air Is Air. I feel dumber just hearing it.”
He handed me the plate, which now had a large slice of cake and a melted puddle of what used to be ice cream next to it. I grinned, dragging a forkful of the cake through the cream.
“Hey, you might know the professor.” My heart beat fast. The wolf was watching the deer again, and I wasn’t sure who was faster. “Woolworth. He had a picture of you and him with your dad and brother at some alchemy special session.”
“Ah.” Nick looked down at his own plate, a frown forming between his brows. “The name doesn’t ring a bell, but I can look at a picture. We met a lot of people through sessions. Most of them weren’t that… exclusive.”
“I didn’t know your family was those Kings.” I sounded like an idiot.
“Yeah.” Nick bit his lip. “I didn’t lie about it.”
“No. You just didn’t offer it up.” I was aware I was toeing a line. Even though I was pushing him for honesty here, I knew I was the one with the bigger lie in my story. My lie could hurt him, where it looked like his just hurt himself.
“My captain knows, but I’m pretty sure no one else does, otherwise they’d treat me like I got this job just because of my family.” His lips pursed. “Which I didn’t.”
His eyes cut to me, narrow and suspicious. I held up both hands. “Hey, I never said you did.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first who thought that.”
“Okay, look, I don’t know you that well,” I said. “And you don’t know me, either, except what I look like in cuffs. But I want to know you.”
Slowly, Nick nodded. “I’d like that, too.”
“Good. Now eat some of your melted ice cream. My rich boyfriend doesn’t know it belongs in the freezer and not on the ground. I guess he’s always had servants who take care of that for him.”
Shaking his head, Nick bumped my shoulder with his. He was smiling, but I could sense wariness when he looked at me. “What are you going to do with the class list?”
He was navigating us back to safer territory. The case was something neutral, and I wondered how hot-button his family was to him that he couldn’t even have one conversation about them without freezing me out.
“Well, we know when the werewolves were killed, right? We have those exact dates. They didn’t sit around for months.
I’ll call the students and find out who has alibis so we can clear them.
” I took another bite of cake, and enjoyed Nick’s look of discomfort when I spoke, mouth still full.
“Hey, it’s even something I can do from home, no chance of a werewolf kidnapping. ”
“Good,” he said. “Since so far you’re oh for one with Dieter Rossi.”
“I’ll have you know, I’m one for two, okay? I got him pretty good before he got me and almost killed me.”
Nick grinned and shoved a forkful of cake in my mouth. “Shhhhh. Tell yourself that.”
The next morning, he pulled another suit out of a garment bag I hadn’t even noticed him bring in. I watched him dress and groaned into my pillow.
“I can’t believe I didn’t realize how rich you were before now,” I said. “You have eight hundred designer suits and they’re all tailored.”
“Well, you aren’t that good of a detective, then.” Nick tightened his tie.
“You want breakfast?” I asked.
He looked at me in the mirror on the closet door. “What do you have for breakfast, Parker?”
I bristled at the dry tone and muttered, “Dry cereal.”
“Because your milk is expired?”
“Go on,” I said. “Get out of here. Your invitation is revoked.”
He laughed, and turned to pin me to the bed, hands on either side of my head. With a fervent kiss, he drew a groan from me. Then he stood and crossed his arms.
“Get groceries. I’ll see you tonight.” He gathered his things into his duffel bag.
“Will you get takeout again?” I begged.
“Fine,” he grinned. “You should still get groceries.”
I waved him off and locked the door behind him. After a quick shower, I opened my fridge, only to remember he was right and soda or beer wasn’t something I could add to the dry cereal.
Closing the fridge door, I screamed when I saw Shannon standing in my kitchen.
“Holy Hera, Parker, this is not how an adult lives,” she said.